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Hey everyone, I'm feeling a lot better today. Yesterday and the day before were terrible. It sucks having a stomach bug but it sounds like everyone else in the universe has one too, so I'm not alone in that department. Please enjoy today's slightly more coherant Respawn.

When I was a kid, I used to read this magazine called “MAD Magazine” and it was some kind of parody / comedy magazine full of cartoons and dark humor. In it they kept using “department” by-lines, of course making fun of other magazines, periodicals, and newspapers. In the “I told you so department” Derek Smart once again alienates people that for some reason were dumb enough to give him money.

This is the problem with the Internet right now. People have money, I don’t know where they’re getting it and I want some of it, but they have money to just blindly hand to people with no research. Again, in my campaign against why crowdfunding is dumb and lame, Derek Smart is the last game developer you want to hand money to. By last I mean he’s probably not the LAST one, but he’s in that crew where he’s proven that he can’t produce a playable game in the last ten years that has any market share beyond the three people who were somehow talked into it.

Before I share this comedy of a “news post” let me explain a technique some developers are using for their games. They only let in the highest tier of donators first, the zealous “I will love anything you hand me I am invested so far into this game that it has to be good TOO BIG TO FAIL.” These players are naturally the marketing arm of most crowdfunded campaigns. They stagger it to let in the next tier and the next tier, hopefully using the feedback of the players who won’t go around and post negative reviews of your game. In Derek's case he charged people a huge price to make sure they're on board with his game.

Alright so here is what happened. Smarts game somehow got greenlit, no clue how, but it did. So it went up on Steam and then for some magical reason it was tagged F2P and thousands of players were able to access the game. They then found the game to be terrible and posted negative reviews of it.

Move forward a little bit, Mr. Smart takes care of their entitlements to play the game, then posts an article blaming everyone for everything but himself, because naturally he’s not at fault for any of this and those negative reviews aren’t because his game is bad, but because they’re mad they can’t log in.

It’s a huge “u mad bro” troll, which of course, Derek Smart being the world’s biggest troll developer, took advantage of. If you haven’t got what I’m trying to say yet:

People seen a new game on the F2P list, downloaded it, then posted that it was a buggy steaming pile of crap. Then, Derek Smart, lost it on his website saying that they weren’t the audience of his game, they mad because the game is awesome and they can’t play, and you can’t say anything yet because he’s staggering his content releases.

Yet, I only know Mr. Smart because I’m an old Internet man that’s been in this industry for 9 years this November, and his game barely gets mentions anywhere. Hell, I’m not even mentioning the title in this article. He ain’t getting no free Google publicity from me.

You can’t hate gamers for playing your game and not liking it. You can’t sit there and treat them like thieves because Steam just said “hey here is a new free game.” It wasn’t like there was some mad zerg rush trying to get the game before anyone else. The steep cost to even play his game and the feedback from people who are already in is enough to set off warning flags for everyone.

Of course, a few users who are posting screenshots from the game who may or may not be on his team of developers are obvious proof that it’s GOTY.

You know whatever, don’t treat us gamers like crap because you have a huge ego, you know? Don’t say people who comment about your game are vicious pirates because they don’t know any better about Steam letting them into a game for free. Your average gamer doesn’t know who a game developer is. This isn’t the 80s and 90s where people who gamed had 14 different magazine subscriptions. This is now.

Be nice to us and we will be nice to you, but as Smart has shown, there are very few that appreciate his sense of troll.

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About The Author

Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.